How Hollywood Cracked the Motorsport Movie

How Hollywood Cracked the Motorsport Movie

Along with television and film one of the biggest loves that I have in my life has always been motorsport, from catching my first Formula One race on television as a wide eyed six year old I was hooked from an early age, and from Formula One came Touring Cars, then Indycar, Nascar, Moto GP you name it, basically in this day and age if it has an engine in it then more likely then not I am going to watch it race. With it's extremely competitive industry of colourful characters, politics and scandal all set upon a backdrop of glamour, wealth and danger you would think that the sport would be the perfect focus of attention for any Hollywood production, yet for 30 years Hollywood often struggled to successfully be able to translate the appeal of motorsport through a cinematic context, some of this coming from the natural difficulties of translating the excitement of sport on 35mm but most of the time coming from a complete inability of those involve to truly capture what it is that makes us motorsport so enthralled by our sport, an opinion that has only changed following the breakout success of 2009's Senna.

Prior to Senna however motorsport films found themselves split into two key types, each divided primarily through different generations which in some ways cam also be used as a means of defining the changing interpretation of cinema. The first wave came about in the 1960's and 70's where motorsport films included the likes of Steve McQueen's Le Mans as well as the 1969 Paul Newman flick Winning, both were moderate successes in the box office but earned more of a following through a cult status achieved with the rise of video and DVD. Both of these films in many ways could be seen as arguable pet projects of their respective stars, with both Newman and McQueen being keen petrol-heads both in their leisure time as well as both having keen involvements in motorsport itself, Newman would become part owner of an Indycar team during the 1980's whilst McQueen took part in a number of race meetings including a second place finish in the 12 hours of Sebring, and this interest in the sport shines through with their respective films, both Le Mans and Winning are beautifully shot and with a keen eye on the technical side of the sport, letting the imagery and atmosphere of motorsport, rather then dialogue and story-arcs be the catalyst for drawing you into the project, hell, for the first 30 minutes of Le Mans the only meaningful dialogue is a conversation about brake calipers such is the level of technical interest in the film. However in making the film so fixated around the technical side of the sport that it is deterring from a filmic viewpoint, Le Mans has almost no story whatsoever whilst Winning is flimsy to see the least, rendering the whole purpose of the two films as beautifully made but ultimately pointless pet projects. John Frankenheimer's 1966 release Grand Prix manages however to strike the right chords a bit better, whilst still not perfect by any means it's storyline feels a bit more in depth and with characters fleshed out and easy to see based on the real drivers of the day and with camera work and cinematography well ahead of it's time, but still locked away in the realms of the niche to ever truly be welcomed by a modern audience.

Unfortunately though by the 1980's it was the modern audiences which took priority, and the motor racing film entered phase 2; where technicality and aura in the sport was pushed aside to make way for the sport being nothing more then a glorified set-piece for another film genre, and in the process making films that went a long way to hurting the reputation of the sport. In 1990 producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer attempted to recreate the success of their previous work Top Gun by replacing the world of Aerial warfare with that of Nascar for their follow-up Days Of Thunder. But whilst Top Gun was able to do wonders for the outside world's interpretation of the military the same couldn't be said about Days of Thunder with Nascar; as the film is rife with bland characterisation and a very generic attitude to the (literal) nuts and bolts of motorsport's off-track activity, added to that comes the action on track also suffers, blandly shot and with a almost demeaning attitude to racing in general. Nascar doesn't have a large fan-base here in the UK so for a lot of people their view of Nascar is that of reckless nonprofessionals who believe that putting another man's life in danger by deliberately wrecking them is fair game, all because of this film. Honestly I would probably go as far as to consider Will Ferrell's Talladega Nights as a more realistic portrayal of Nascar.

Days of Thunder failed because it failed to understand what it is that motorsport fans look for in following the industry, and it was the same mistake that befell Sylvester Stallone's big money 2001 flop Driven. Whist Days of Thunder came under the impression at times that motorsport aficionados were rather simplistic and uninterested in the backyard workings of the sport Driven seemed to believe that all motorsport fans were 13 year old boys, and what should have been a character driven battle of wills was instead turned into a mess of techno music, lazy character archetypes and some of the worst action set-pieces seen in cinema, the belief being that every bit of contact in the sport must result in a Michael Bay-esque explosion of somersaulting cars. For it's credit Driven does get some of the off-track pressures of the sport right, certainly more-so then Days of Thunder, but the rest of the film feels and acts like a Playstation One game, and whilst Days of Thunder only harmed British perceptions of their sport Driven's failure helped to play a part in the CART series on which it's based going bankrupt and eventually out of business, now that is what you call getting it wrong.


All of the preceding films seemed to have this belief of what it is that we as motorsport fans look for in seeing our sport portrayed, it isn't about catering to the masses, action set-pieces or even the technical side of the sport; it is for me all about the people behind the cars;the drivers, the enigmatic, charismatic figures who elevate themselves to the level of heroes through putting their bodies and lives on the line for the sake of success, and in the process create something of an aura surrounding them and bring into context for the audience the scale of their achievements, and that is more then anything else what Senna managed to do so well. Ayrton Senna was always one of the most charismatic drivers in the sport, and through his tragic passing in 1994 almost seemed to develop something of a mystique surrounding him subsequently for Formula One fans , and in the movie Senna director Asif Kapadia was able to capture that aura and transcribe the Senna myth to both the sport's fans and the wider public. This was done not just through the showcasing of Senna's skills inside the car but also by his personality away from it, the self-belief of the man and at times the enigmatic and competitive side that made him more then just a generic hero who drove around for a living. Furthermore to this the film does well to capture the sport's inner workings, the gritty political side which drives what it is that we as fans see on track, sure Days of Thunder had a generic big bad authority figure briefly in the film but certainly nothing like Jean Marie-Balestre's aggression and arrogance, which played off against the free-spirited nature of Senna and made for a great arc through the film's story, similarly done with Alain Prost who I do feel at times however gets a bit of a bad rap in the film.


Senna surpassed all expectations at the box office, from being a largely niche film limited to art-houses word of mouth spread to the extent that it was awarded a nationwide release, and in the process opened up the gates to other films about motorsport being made, thanks to Senna Hollywood had finally come to understand the appeal of the sport, the people-driven approach that turned ordinary men into extra-ordinary figures, the figureheads of a well oiled and at times controversial system. Senna was followed up by the similarly brilliant films 1 as well as TT: Closer To The Edge which helped to play a part in helping to revive popularity in the Isle Of Man TT Race, showcasing the danger of the sport in it's truest form, but never glorifying that spectacle in the way that films such as Driven did. All of those films however had one thing in common however which helped to propel it I feel was that the films were all classified as documentaries, and the use of archive footage I felt truly helped manage to get over to mainstream audiences a realism in both those involved in the sport as well as truly showcasing the skill, danger and pressures of those in the sport, certainly the Cole Trickle's of Hollywood were a long way from the real world Guy Martin's of TT. What the motorsport movie needed however was for the energy and captured essence of the documentary film to be realised in Hollywood form, and with 2013's Rush we finally got that. Rush did have a lot of benefits coming it's way even before the start of production, the 1976 F1 season ranks up there as one of the very best and in characters such as James Hunt and Niki Lauda two almost polar opposite figures but still with their own unique charisma that both carry, as well as this Ron Howard has always had a knack of bringing these ambiguous real life figures to the big screen and although there were some niggling issues which would harm the Formula One obsessive Howard was able to truly combine the character driven narrative necessary for a modern film audience in the way that Day's of Thunder attempted to do but still have the care and natural interest in the sport to appeal to the true motoring diehards such as the late sixties McQueen and Newman efforts. The film was also particularly smart in not making the same mistakes as those of the past by not making the actual racing side of the film too overtly important, reports said that originally Howard wanted to shoot the film without any racing scenes in the film at all, and to be honest I feel that if he had done that we would have had a film of just a good a quality such is the strength of the rest of the film.

With the release of Rush I would like to believe that Hollywood has finally been able to master the motorsport film, and in the process truly translate to viewers just what it is that draws us to the sport and keeps people like myself viewing for so long. The characters, the men behind the machines, not the technicals, crashes or simplicity but the heart and daring of those involved and the lengths they will go to in an attempt to achieve their goals. It will still be a long way before I ever see a motor racing film getting reward accolades, but if boxing has managed to make that breakthrough then there is nothing to say motor racing can't do the same someday, especially now that Hollywood seems to have finally got it right.

Big Brother 15- Week 9 Assessment.

  Big Brother- Week 9 Assessment: Did that just happen?

 

We are into injury time in this year’s season of Big Brother, the players on the pitch are drained, the fans in the stadium are growing tiresome but things are beginning to build towards what could be an exciting climax.

Why am I bringing up all of the football connotations? Well aside from Big Brother one of my other big passions is football, and in many ways I cam make comparisons between Big Brother as a franchise and a football team; they will frustrate you, more often then not squander potential and on many an occasion leave you questioning why you put yourself through supporting them day after day, yet once in a blue moon they manage to pull out a result so amazing it makes all of that suffering as a fan worthwhile, and in this week’s eviction the show managed to pull off it’s own version of a 3-0 drumming of Manchester United at Old Trafford, a double eviction which proved incredibly rewarding on both a personal level and a show level and has helped to make the series all the more unpredictable as we reach the final minutes.

The first part of the double however wasn’t where the magic lay, even though it was one which I was satisfied with on a personal level. I always had my worries about Mark as a housemate even from the early stages of the show expecting him to be a horrible contrived irritant which would stay in the show well past his sell-by date, and to a large extent I feel like this came into fruition, a horribly obnoxious camera who gave me Charlie Drummond vibes in the way in which he would use  his lovable fun-guy persona to hid a dark and nasty side to his personality, the only difference however being that Mark’s focus was based on airtime whereas Charlie’s was through trying to win the show. On the plus side however with Mark I found it refreshing for a their to be a relationship in Big Brother between two gay contestants which didn’t have any kind of stigma associated with it or any kind of audience hysteria, but even in that case Mark came across very poorly in the relationship, more often then not treating Christopher like dirt and blaming him for Mark being perceived so poorly. It was very egotistical of him and I’m glad we managed to get a week without him in the show barring some sort of task twist, which based on this series I am wholeheartedly expecting.

Where the real joy with this eviction lay however was in the eviction of Winston, a result which I would probably put up there with the likes of Kirk and Natalie, Kathreya and Maxwell in terms of great Big Brother evictions, not so much because of Winston as a person but more down to the way in which it has helped to blow the show’s endgame wide open. To be honest I don’t have that much issue with Winston as a housemate, he seemed pleasant enough and I would put him up in the higher echelons of contestants cast to fill the ‘Essex lad’ archetype that the show thrives on these days, the issues for me stems from what he represents as a potential winner of the show, we have seen housemates similar to Winston end up being strong contenders for the win simply on the back of being inoffensive and attractive, and with a group demonstrating as many individual flaws as they do the likelihood is that Winston’s Brian Belo meets Sam Evans persona would have been an easy default vote to win, and would in the process be the cherry atop of this poor series.

The thing that surprised me most of all though was the way in which the Winston eviction came about, I remembered posting on the BBUK Facebook page after the Thursday highlights show a casual comment along the lines of ‘wouldn’t it be great if Winston went this week’ not expecting any psotive responses or any kind of serious take-up of this suggestion, and yet found more and more people as the day went on sharing this same opinion and snowballing into the serious campaign that ultimately proved successful. It has also proven to be the symbolic benchmark for one of the big themes of this years series; tactical voting. More so then any other year in Big Brother history we have the voting audience become much more overtly cynical about the voting process and have begun to abuse the system to bring about results and consequences which they may not have done so in the Channel 4 era of the show, Tamara and Matthew’s boots were attempts to send a negative message to Helen and Ashleigh respectively, Jale and Zoe’s boots designed to save Ashleigh and Chris and even through to saving Pav in the Armageddon week to make sure that Bianca went at his expense. This could be held as a sign of a maturity in the voting audience, but in my opinion it is an indicator of the fact that the swing of power between the tweens and the housewives has begun to be swung back towards the latter demographic. For all that people try and imply that Reality Television is something aimed at the tween audience and those with an impulsive mobile phone finger it is in my opinion the housewives which hold a large sway with phone voting then many like to give them credit for, you only need to look at Christopher Maloney’s success on The X Factor as evidence of that.

The question then becomes who the housewives will look to favour when they and the tweens make their votes on Friday night. Most of the bookies will be looking towards Ashleigh as the winner, but part of me feels that the voters may be a bit hesistant to give her the win when push comes to shove, Big Brother in the Channel 5 has had many issues with the voter’s relationships with women and I feel that Ashleigh may go the same way as Deana and fall short come the end in spite of internet polls and bookies odds saying otherwise. If Ashleigh is to be this years Deana then in my opinion it will be Christopher which will prove to be the Luke. A genuinely nice person, prominent without ever being too overbearing and not carrying as much of the personality baggage which Ashleigh has had during this series, it’s not the result that would be most ideal of the potential choices personally, but it is one that I would happily accept and one which I am quietly confident of happening. I also have a sneaky suspicion that Ash may surprise many coming into the final vote, he survived two evictions where he was a dead cert to leave and has since the vote to win lines opened shown more of a jovial side which will endear him to the audience, have a look at him to take fourth, and maybe even third depending on how the week unfolds.

The final whistle is about to be blown on this series and maybe on the whole what we have seen hasn’t been worth it, but when you nail your flag to the mast you have to keep it up there.

Big Brother 15: Week 8 Review- Every Little Helps

Big Brother 15: Week 8 Review

Firstly I want to start off this week’s assessment by apologising for my failure to post a review of week 7, I had a lot on my plate over the course of the week and unfortunately didn’t have the time to publish my feelings about the week’s proceedings. To be fair though if there was a week to miss writing about however then that was the perfect choice, as the premise of having to write positively about Steven Goode is one to scare off even the most passionate blogger. One of the things is highlighted to me though is the way in which the opinions of those that watch the show can change so quickly over the course of the week, and this week’s proceedings helped t highlight two very notable examples of that, both of which I have plenty of grievances about.

I will begin by speaking about one of those changes of opinion, that being our most recent evictee Zoe, of all of the three intruders that entered during week 6 Zoe was the one who I had as a lock to make it the furthest, even possibly to the final, she was a bubbly character whose presence would make a welcome change in a house defined by negativity and she had a pre-show fan base that put her in a good standing, as demonstrated by being saved first in both a vote to save and vote to evict scenario in her first two weeks, then of course came the Tesco comment, and the opening of the floodgates towards what would ultimately orchestrate her departure. I do understand the grievances that a lot of people had with Zoe’s Tesco comments, as somebody who had worked in a supermarket for a short time I can tell you that it is an incredibly strenuous and highly demanding role which doesn’t give the payment to it’s employees that they ultimately deserve, employees which are more often then not in that position through necessity rather then through an indication of their skill abilities, and it does annoy me that there are people like Zoe who look down on those types of people and considers them as lesser standard of human because of their profession. At the same time however I do feel slightly aggrieved that this comment was blown up in the way that it was by the audience, and that in the eyes of the audience Zoe was targeted and subsequently evicted on the back of one throwaway comment, in my opinion though I think the comment was more then anything the key to unlock the door as it were to targeting Zoe, prior to the comment there had been murmurings surrounding Zoe’s behaviour and the feeling from some in the fanbase that she was getting annoying with her overly peppy Vera Lynn-meets-Sonia routine, and what the Tesco comment did more then anything was allow those which had issues with Sonia to justify venting them in a public forum, in the same way that I feel that I feel people were scared to speak up about Chris until the label of creepy Chris was assigned to him by production.

And speaking of which we come to Chris and his downfall both within the house dynamics and with the audience itself, going from someone with a realistic chance of winning the game to all but certainly being evicted before the finale, Chris has by a long way had a terrible week within the show, but at the same time I do feel that a lot of his behaviour has been exaggerated by production and made to be a lot worse for the sake of attempting to create the next chapter of their show’s story-arc. Firstly there was the grievances that Chris had with Pav, and I will wholeheartedly agree with the majority that Chris has not looked good in his treatment of the Sikh housemate, but at the same time I feel that there is something in the show that we as an audience are not seeing so that they can push the Chris and Pav feud as the lead storyline of this week. Firstly as we know from the previous weeks Chris has been very accurate in his readings of the housemates and that his diary room commentaries about those housemates have been some of the best elements of a weak series, and I find it difficult at times to think that someone who has had such a good read on house proceedings can get this one suddenly so wrong, and the other aspect of this is the fact that Chris’ grievances with Pav feels as if it is shared by the rest of the house, some of the tweets designed to try and substitute for a live feed (yeah right!) have point to the housemates having problems with him, added to that is the fact that all the housemates aside from Zoe voted for him this week, and yet within the confines of the highlights show this has been portrayed as solely being Chris’ problem when I don’t feel this is the case. On a side note I have found the sympathy vote that Pav has generated this week slightly annoying as well, I understand based on past experiences that the British public do love to support an underdog, and I admit that I have been a victim of that as well, but this is the same person that people were clamouring to be evicted last week due to being dull, and the fact that he on some forums the second favourite doesn’t sit right with me. I do like Pav as a person and he seems pleasant enough, but he has up until now not been exciting television.

Getting back to Chris however the other big attack that has been thrown at him this week is the question of his behaviour around Ashleigh being creepy, and this is one that really annoys me in regards to the producers of the show. Up until this week I have never seen anything about Chris and Ashleigh’s friendship that has been interpreted as being uncomfortable, just two friends that appear to be on the same wavelength as each other and need each other to get through the process, and yet thanks to the mechanisms of the production team and the awful labelling of Chris through Bit on the Side this friendship has had so many awful connotations and innuendos thrown towards it which are hurtful and unjustified, and a guy like Chris who has in my opinion been perfectly pleasant throughout the series has been painted by the show and his detractors as, for all extensive purposes, a sick pervert. The sad thing is though is that part of me feels that a lot of the catalyst for these accusations to be thrown at Chris stems from his appearance, being someone who is older and not particularly attractive he attracts negativity from an increasingly shallow audience for behaviour which may be interpreted as romantically motivated, yet I have the feeling that had someone like Ash and Winston behaved in the way that Chris has this week non of these accusations would have been thrown in my opinion. I know that the show needs to thrive on painting villains of the week for entertainment purposes and that I can’t imagine Chris being somebody who production had lined up as being part of their endgame, but no man deserves to have those kind of accusations thrown at him, especially from a supposedly credible production company as Channel 5, and whilst I was happy that Zoe went this week it was more down to wanting to have Chris stay and send a message to production that their behaviour was uncalled for, even if I do admit Chris would have filled the ‘big character in week 8 boot’ rather well.

Two weeks to go now before the inevitable Winston win, lets just hope these are a lot more enjoyable then the past eight.

Big Brother 15: Week 6- Armageddon Off My Screen

Big Brother 15: Week 6 Assessment- Armageddon Off My Screen

Are you still watching everyone? Can’t blame you if you aren’t.

We have survived Armageddon week in Big Brother 15 this week, and by the rate things have been going I could have done with sending most of the house and the production team up on a rocket to try and blow up an asteroid, as a combination of their own behaviours had led to more frustration and annoyance then anyone watching a television show should be victim to. This week in many ways can be considered symbolic of Big Brother 15 on a whole; the drama and the scandal certainly has been plentiful, you can’t exactly call a week where four contestants have gone as being dull after all, but the whole scenario has been tainted with such a degree of disappointment, contrivance and arrogance from the production team that the entire situation has left a very sour taste in my mouth and left me at times questioning the value of watching the show, a sad thing for a long-term fan such as myself to say, but an opinion which has begun to be uttered more vocally by many die-hard fans within the community.

I will begin by addressing the key factor which links a lot of the reasons for this downturn in series perception, namely the Armageddon twist. We have become used to the fact that Channel 5 are some of the masters of advertising hyperbole, often making ridiculous exaggerations over house twists and casting decisions which ultimately just leave the viewer greatly under whelmed, and in my view it is the Armageddon twist which symbolises this more so then anything, turning what was hyped to us as one of the most explosive weeks in Big Brother history into nothing more then a glorified advertising campaign for the new Planet of the Apes film, something which can only be redeemed by the fact that the ‘Apes together strong’ motif continually uttered during the adverts is a perfect anecdote for Helen’s side of the house. Everything about the setup seemed not only underwhelming compared to the speculation which the show had created for itself but at the same time it also led to a degree of desperation and contrivance from the producers to make up for the fact that their hysteria failed to live up to expectations, the casting promises of boyfriends and enemies of housemates for example was replaced instead by three of the most tedious contestants that the show has had, not so much in them being particularly dull people but in that they all represented character types which have by now just become stale in the channel 5 era.

This is most clearly represented in my view by Bianca’s short stay in the house this week, from the view of production I do understand the reasons why Bianca was cast on paper, she was confrontational, obnoxious and was certainly going to ruffle some feathers in the show, but everything about her was done with such an air of desperation and contrivance on her part that any sort of benefit she did bring to the show was automatically nullified, I see her eviction this week, notably in a vote to save designed specifically to save characters such as herself, as an representation of the publics tiredness of the increasing desperation of Big Brother housemates as much as a protest against Bianca herself as a person, although that in itself is something that would require a completely separate article to itself. In terms of the other new housemates however there is a similar air of been there, done that with the characters chosen. Pav seems pleasant enough, and it is refreshing to have another Sikh housemate represented in the show (joining Siavash in that regard) but there is very little else about him which stands out as interesting and original, we’ve seen so many other male housemates obnoxiously state their intelligence and how they will be able to manipulate the house only to slip into a sea of dreariness and fail to live up to their expectations, and Pav is no different in this regard, he certainly talked the talk with alluding to the prospect of nominating Stephen this week, but when push came to shove he bottled out and settled for people-pleasing, a role which is all he’ll succeed in as a housemate. Meanwhile the casting of Zoe is just plain bizarre for me on so many levels, yes she is bubbly enough and a refreshing change from the innate negativity from the rest of the house, but I can’t honestly fathom the reasons why she is there in the first place, I know that the line between Celebrity and Civilian versions of Big Brother has become increasingly blurred since Channel 5 took over, but in my view Zoe is justified enough to lock herself into any celebrity version, and added to that I also perplexed because I don’t on paper see much way which she is going to progress the show’s storyline forward, even with Bianca as much as I disliked her I knew she would serve a purpose for the show in a way which right now I’m struggling to see with Zoe, I certainly think she will do well, maybe even win if the cards fall into place, but it is certainly a strange call her casting.

But now we get to the stuff which had everyone wound up this week, and I mean really wound up. I know Big Brother fans on the whole have a tendency to go over-the-top with many of their grievances with the show, but in this situation I will whole-heartedly agree with them about everything. This week has been a mess of twists and obnoxious production behaviour all designed to orchestrate and demean Danielle and to orchestrate her departure from the show, the desperation from production to do so being one of petulance and immaturity which should be well below a supposedly responsible broadcaster such as Channel 5. I understand that Danielle did have a lot of baggage coming into the show that the production team would have disliked, especially in her presentation of herself as a prudish figure in complete contrast with that, but her treatment in the show drifted into victimisation, and I felt the way that the show went so gung-ho on her was very unsettling. But the thing was though as a viewer I liked her a housemate, yes she was contrived and as false as they come but at the same time she was so bad at attempting to keep up her good catholic girl charade that I found her entertaining with it, she served her purpose in the show as comedy value and to be honest I found it disappointing that she went, especially in such a contrived manner at the hands of the production team.

The worst thing about the whole situation for me however wasn’t so much the twist itself, although I agree it was bad, it was what the twist represented in terms of the relationship between the production in the show and the viewer. Making this a week which has all but exclusively been chosen by the housemates (allegedly) is symbolic to me of the contempt that the Big Brother production team has for its audience. We all know that there is a need in reality television in recent years for there to be a need for storylines in the show, and when done right I agree that they can help improve a series on the whole, but at the same time the viewer should always be the one who has the final say in which direction the storyline goes in through their eviction votes, and that say this week was thrown out of our hands in my opinion because production frankly did not trust the viewer to make the decision that production would want for it’s storyline to progress. This for me is a cardinal sin in the television industry, especially on a show so reliant on a strong relationship with the public to generate voting revenue and to keep the show going in the first place, don’t get me wrong I am one of the first to disagree with the public and their choices of winners, but at the same time I also accept that this was the decision of the majority of the voting public and in my eyes the show should act in the same manner rather then having a tantrum over it and taking away the voter’s right as a punishment, in the television industry the aim should always be to give the viewer what they want, not to have a tantrum when what the public want isn’t the same as what you the producers want. The whole situation stunk of production’s contempt for the audience, and the show should find itself very relieved that there are a lot of fans sticking by the show through brand loyalty only, and even those die-hards are left questioning their loyalty to the show.

What makes the whole thing worse though in my eyes is the direction that production wants to show to go down if they had their way, something which has been demonstrated further this week though their twists and tasks designed to ostracise particular housemates at the expense of others, namely by helping to enable Helen’s harem in the house whilst condemning the group outsiders, culminating in the orchestrated boot of Danielle by the end of the week. There has been a definite aim from Channel 5 to try and push the show towards more of a scripted Reality audience, and Helen’s group in my view is representative of the direction that show ultimately wants to favour, but the fact of the matter is that the audience don’t want this from their show, they have spoken vocally on social media and internet forums about their dislike for Helen, the tedium of Stephen and Kimberly’s relationship whilst at the same time been very supportive of the outsiders of the group, demonstrated by the fact that the likes of Chris, Ashleigh and Christopher are polling so highly online. Production should be going out of their way to appease the viewer for their choices, understand the reasons why the public feel this way about their favourites and learn from this to help improve the show in the future, but as mentioned before there is this head-in-the-sand thought pattern from production which refuses to let them see the show in this way and instead persist with their aim for The Only Way Is Elstree. It’s almost akin to George Lucas learning of how hated Jar Jar Binks was in Star Wars and deciding that the viewer was wrong for thinking this way and giving him more airtime for the sequel. It’s a flawed approach which demonstrates contempt for the viewer, and will eventually come back to haunt Channel 5 if they keep it up, because trust me, once the old school viewers leave they will not be replaced.

Oh, and Marlon went this week as well.

Big Brother Week 5 assessment

Big Brother Week 5 Assessment: Draining Batteries and Draining Enthusiasm

Another week, another reactionary blog about the day’s events on Big Brother, and trust me when I say it has been an absolute slog to get through this week of the show, emotionally exhausting and frustrating in equal measure and sadly with very little to make you feel that things are going to take an upturn. Of all the series to start writing a blog about eh?!

For all of my frustrations about this series however the one thing that I cannot say is that come eviction night it has been boring. Yes I will concede that Pauline’s eviction was something that even Ray Charles could see coming but aside from that all of the evictions have been unpredictable and passionately fought in the online community, and the result of this is that even someone like myself who often likes to take a step backwards with the show and look at the wider picture has been getting more passionately involved with the evictions. This week’s outcome was certainly no exception, but one which for reasons I will explain somewhat feels fruitless.

Firstly however I’m going to start as I always do by assessing the most recent evictee in the form of Jale, now in the past couple of days, be it fuelled by her own wrongdoings or through her status as a target of the fanbases of other nominees I noticed a distinct downturn in the perception of Jale as a housemate, and even though I do agree that she was the right call to be evicted this week I can’t share the same negative sentiment over her in the way that others may have done this week. This was in my eyes somebody who was especially in the early stages somebody who was very level-headed, likable and played her role as an early season underdog very well, and you were left with the impression in those first two weeks that if there was somebody who you felt could have made the killer nomination work in their favour then it would have been her, compared to the launch night fear that I had with Jale that she was destined to be an obnoxious Becky Hannon clone she surpassed my expectations. Where Jale fell apart however as a housemate, and the reason why she was evicted this week, was the fact that after Pauline departed she failed to show much more character development and warmth as a contestant especially compared to her fellow nominees, whilst the second big mistake was through drifting over to Helen’s side of the house and becoming part of a rather obnoxious minority, ironically considering her supposed underdog status and with a series which has an underlying theme of ‘guilt by association’ with the majority of it’s evictions. Jale certainly wasn’t my first choice to go, but the best choice both in regards to likeability and the future progress of the show, leaving open a thin opportunity for the outsiders of the house to mount a comeback in the show’s proceedings, something that would have been nigh-on impossible had one of the other three nominees gone this week.

The eviction however was by all accounts a very small part of the week five proceedings, as this week saw us experience some of the most uncomfortable and frustrating footage seen in Big Brother for a long time, namely the progression of the showmance between Stephen and Kimberly. I have never been a fan of showmances of any kind in Big Brother, and when you have one consisting of someone as joylessly obnoxious and cold as these two you can imagine my enthusiasm would be right through the floor, and it showed as this relationship has become an essential part of number of long-drawn-out highlight shows, but what has made the whole thing worse for me is the behaviour of Stephen in the relationship, a sneering, obnoxious controlling figure more akin to that of an abusive boyfriend then that of a Big Brother housemate and one who through his demanding and condescending demeanour has become incredibly uncomfortable viewing, the wording with which Stephen speaks down towards Kimberly and the way in which she adheres to his every demand and keeps crawling back to him makes me feel very uneasy and leaves me worried about the prospect of another Hazel and Daley situation if Channel 5 do as I think they will and attempt to capitalise on the controversy that the two are generating for the show, and based on the past history with Channel 5 I certainly wouldn’t have put it past them.

The second big storyline of the week stemmed from Marlon’s decision to save himself from immunity as part of this week’s battery task and in the process saw himself thrust into a savage takedown by pretty much the majority of the house and in the process thrown to the sidelines with the rest of the outsiders ready to be picked off when the time is right. Initially I did share sympathies with the group about Marlon’s decision, it came across as cowardly and from a personal point of view I saw him by a long way the most expendable cast member of the series, but as I watched the rest of the group’s reactions to his decisions my opinions did begin to swing in his favour. Firstly there was the realisation that although Marlon was cowardly in wanting to avoid facing the wrath of the public he just did what any of us viewing the show would have done in the same situation, it is a game of self preservation after all, but the other big reason my opinion swung stemmed from the over-reactions of the other housemates and more importantly the reasons for those reactions. These housemates are among some of the most savvy the show has had, and after 15 years on the year all of them know pretty much every trick in the book when it comes to trying to win the show, and the way in which Marlon was attacked by the other housemates seemed more like a group of desperados looking for an opportunity to attack the man they perceived as being the villain of the week with the public, I didn’t see housemates upset about losing their shopping budget I saw a group of cynical desperadoes looking for their Craig Phillips moment to try and and propel themselves into having a chance of winning the show, baring this in mind I found it particularly interesting that Mark and Winston were the most vocal about Marlon’s behaviour when I would consider both to be the two most desperate contestants to win the whole thing. It is however notable and ominous on his part that even in spite of the controversy he generated Marlon remains the least relevant and least interesting contestant of the series, and that he must do a lot more to up his game to build up any kind of redemption for his sexist comments early in the series.

In the last writeup I did following Matthew’s eviction I spoke quite vocally about the way in which the voting public would more often then not fail to see the bigger picture of a Big Brother series and instead look for the short term self-satisfaction with their decisions. Well one of the things that Marlon’s eviction caused me to do, as well as many of the other elements of the battery task for that matter, is make me realise that the producers of the show can be considered just as guilty of this as those who vote in the shows themselves, in some cases even worse then the voters. With the voting public as much as it frustrates me I can to an extent understand the reasons for their voting patterns, they are victims of an impulse medium and most are teenage girls who would never have looked up the term common sense in a dictionary, but the Big Brother producers and executives are professionals with academic degrees and qualifications, they should on paper have the knowledge to understand the repercussions of their actions and understand the long term detriment some of their decisions make. The idea of allowing Helen to see what Ashleigh has said about her in the diary room does on paper sound fantastic, and in regards to the drama it generated it worked, but it has in the same time made fans question the integrity of the show, render the diary room as a concept all but useless and because it was Helen who was the beneficiary of the information given off the impression of the show favouring her, and sadly this is a situation which has shown its head plenty of times in the Channel 5 era.

This approach of short term drama over long term game has been observed by many of the decisions that production have also made in their eviction twists. The decision in week 3 to allow Stephen to nominate and subsequently evict Toya robbed us of a huge controversy magnet who was just hitting her stride at that point, the immunity challenge these week which saved Marlon and in the process kept around a farcically weak housemate at the expense of someone with a bit more depth and of course with this subsequent immediate eviction come the Monday night. I can on paper see where production are coming from, it is unique and is going to cause short term drama and intrigue, but in the process they are once again leaving themselves very open to the possibility of losing a fan favourite housemate and upsetting a British public which is already frustrated with the direction of the show. Personally I think this person will be Ashleigh, which would be for the show and production one of the worst scenarios due to Ashleigh’s popularity with the audience, her status as the most prominent anti-Helen housemate and the fact that her fan base paid large sums of money to make sure she stayed just three days prior to the eviction. The show is walking a deadly tightrope, and a bad move on the Monday is going to leave it hanging by a thread.

Big Brother 15: Week 4 Assessment

 Big Brother 15: Week 4 Assessment

It’s the morning after the night before.

When I put the finishing touches on last week’s update of this blog I certainly didn’t think that seven days later that I would be conducting the post-mortem on the eviction of Matthew Davies, a victim of one of the most controversial evictions certainly of the Channel 5 era and arguably of the entire franchise. Even by the traditional hyperbole that often comes with the aftermath of Big Brother evictions this one has arguably caused more outrage on social media and internet forums then any eviction that I can remember, and I’m certainly not the first person to throw in their two cents over this eviction and I certainly won’t be the last, and like most that have shared their opinion I am thoroughly disappointed with the result, although I have the feeling it may not be for the same reasons as many others.

Firstly however we need to start with Matthew as a housemate, the traditional post-eviction exaggerations of Matthew has led to him being painted as this beloved fantastic all star housemate who was a laugh-a-minute romp robbed in the prime of his BB career, and yet the sad but honest truth is that this was not the case in a long way. Whilst I am someone who did like Matthew as a person and saw him as somewhat of a positive presence in what has been an incredibly negative series I am also the first to admit that he was dull and largely irrelevant to the series, and that aside from one confrontation with Helen over spin the bottle he didn’t contribute much to the house dynamics. Where I have issue with his departure however stems from the fact that Matthew’s eviction has, in the process, ended up saving Ash and in the process, and keeping around a character which contributes very little positives, has an awful self righteous attitude whilst also enabling a very unpopular house majority, is something that doesn’t sit well with me. I do think that a degree of complacency has played a part in Ash not receiving his comeuppance, but it is also the house dynamics of this week and the public’s interpretation of those events which have truly proven the pivotal swing in this week’s eviction.

Which brings me onto the major gripe with this eviction result; namely the way in which the voting audience interpret the show in such a reckless manner. I understand that a show such as Big Brother is one that is driven on impulse and emotion, something which has been exasperated with the rise of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, but what really annoyed me was the way in which two characters in Helen and Ash, both of which had been the victims of vicious scorn online, have seen nearly all of their negative traits from the previous three weeks have been ignored from the audience thanks to a combination of a diluting of the edits of the two, a series of terribly tacky humour tasks and the emergence of a new villain of the week for the voting audience to get their teeth into in the form of Ashleigh, all three factors which to differing extents were producer influenced and orchestrated in the edit this week. Not only did I have issue with how blatant this change in editing tone was but more then anything I was alarmed by the way in which the voting audience managed to buy into what they were being shown in the highlights and in the process see Ashleigh as the figure to be taken down instead of Helen through getting rid of Matthew to send Ashleigh a lesson about her behaviour. I wholeheartedly confessed that Ashleigh has at times straddled the limes between confidence and arrogance, but I would like to think that between herself and Helen she has over the course of the show so far been the lesser of the two evils.

It is this kind of impulsive attitude to the show which at times leaves you questioning the way in which you are supposed to interpret a show such as Big Brother; what is the point of getting so invested into a show such as this, weighing up every single comment and argument over the course of 8-9 weeks, when the voting audience can make their judgements of right and wrong based on 4 days of desperate party lining from the production team, something which arguably will be amplified from production knowing from yesterday’s result that their input does influence the gullible voting public. It is very telling that a lot of those people who came forward and admitted to voting out Matthew as a means of spiting Ashleigh still listed Helen as their least favourite contestant in the series, which to me highlights both the flaws in the audience’s train of thought and the power of production influence.

And yet at the same time I cannot understand the reasons for why the voting public responded so badly to Ashleigh over her actions this past week, yes she was overconfident in her attempt to take down Ash but at the same time she was serving a role which a lot of the casual audience were craving for: someone to appose Helen directly and try and put an end to her alliance of alpha males. Last week the crowd was so vicious towards Helen that they were chanting at the eviction to get Helen’s enemy Jenny Thompson into the house, yet this week the public basically got their ‘Jenny’ put into the show in the form of Ashleigh, and yet have practically chosen to reject it with their decision this week. In some ways what has happened reminds of Big Brother 10 when Lisa received months of scorn and venom against her due to her treatment of Freddie, and yet when the opportunity arose within the house to get her out the voting public instead chose to keep her in as a means of teaching a lesson to an increasingly obnoxious Freddie, of course as we all remember Lisa then used that momentum to put a stranglehold on the endgame and guarantee her side of the house a victory, and that is a fear that I have based on this result. Still as a core five-some, and with satellite housemates in the form of Jale and Kimberly, Helen’s side of the house now dominate the house dynamic, and with normal nominations this week will more then likely orchestrate the boot of Ashleigh and further strengthen their position. And the tragic thing is that those who will be most vocal about this Helen centric house will more then likely be those that got Matthew out this week.

Makes you think doesn’t it?

Big Brother 15: Week 3 Assessment

 Big Brother 15: Week 3

 

 Stand back, there’s a hurricane coming through…

Or at least there was, as three weeks into the show the British public once again made one of their trademark terrible decisions by removing Toya Washington from the Big Brother 15 house, and with it remove the source of a large proportion of all of the conflict from the series within the past week, but coming from a public which rewarded Sam Evans 100k for being attractive I cannot say I’m surprised.

As I said last week in my week 3 assessment Toya’s departure was not one which was unexpected, I was left with the feeling that when the decision was made to allow the housemates to put one of the two power housemates up for the week that the decision was made to orchestrate Toya’s departure from the show, which at the time was something that I was supportive of as I considered her abrasive but without any kind of pantomime quality to redeem her behaviour, you could argue that her delusional interpretation of herself was an example of that but you are stretching it however. By the end of the week however she was someone who I was actively rooting to remain in the show, she begun to show a lot more depth as a personality in the show and whilst she still wasn’t my cup of tea compared to some of the others in there she was practically Ghandi. Someone said it best when they described Toya as the best third placer that never was, and I think that her departure should be used as evidence to production that whilst twists are a necessity for drama that too many of them can create this kind of situation in the future robbing us of future Toyas.

Where I will give production a lot of credit for however managing to make this eviction so competitive, this eviction should have been a cakewalk basically designed to crown off Toya’s departure from the show, and yet through clever editing, some carefully chosen twists and the self destruction of the housemates in week 3 we ended up turning this into arguably one of the most competitive and passionate evictions of the Channel 5 era. I struggle to think of the last time that I saw an eviction which people got so wound up over, creating an eviction atmosphere which was passionate to the point of being hostile. Not only through Toya’s actions early in the week which of course played a part in her eviction but also through the emergence of Ash as probably the worst contestant of this series. I always had issues with Ash from a very early stage of the show, but within this past week he began to reach almost Kris Donnelly levels of obnoxiousness, arrogance and self entitlement which is completely unjustified, someone who believes everything should be handed to him on a silver platter because he’s attractive despite the fact that he is in fact boorish, dull, sexist, arrogant, egotistical and one of the least interesting characters of the series. It’s the main reason more then anything why I had such issues with Toya departing this week, not so much because Toya was so amazing as a housemate but because the potential uproar that would have come with an Ash downfall would have had long term effect on the house as well as giving us an eviction which would have given Sezer a run for his money, instead however keeping Ash in the house has left a dull personality in the show and at the same time helped enable his side of the house (consisting of an obnoxious male foursome and Helen) to dictate the flow of play within the show. The only consolation I can make is that keeping Ash does avoid the possibility of a Helen underdog redemption arc, but once again I am clutching at straws for that one.

Aside from the result though I cannot fault week 3 from an entertainment perspective, a week that had a large number of major arguments and in the process helped to bring a number of minority characters to the forefront. Matthew finally emerged out of his spineless shell to be the unlikely combatant against Helen’s house tyranny, and whilst I did find it refreshing to see a combative side to Matthew I also felt that he was quite lucky to have some cards fall into place for him in the show, there is a slightly snobbish and bitchy side to him during any of his interpersonal conversations and yet due to being well spoken and against Helen’s side of the house I don’t think the wider public will pay too much attention to these shortcomings. Ashleigh was another one to emerge out of the woodwork this week, it has taken me a long time to really get a grasp on Ashleigh in the show, as for me personally her role in the show had been to be a Sophie Reade style figure to remain grounded and relatable against a sea of obnoxious forces, pleasant enough but devoid of any engagement, and yet this week saw her as the victim for Helen’s side of the house and pushed into somewhat of a protagonist role and as a result somebody who might be considered something of a dark house, an underdog position, likeable and with a sidekick in Danielle to take any of the public’s ammunition should she find herself in trouble.

Aside from the emergence of them two Helen of course stole the headlines with another aggressive and berating performance against Matthew which warranted a formal warning and yet more calls for her free pass to be revoked, I can’t believe now that I had her down to be a boring filler housemate when I did my launch night assessment. Whilst Helen is aggressive though I still stand more on the positive side of her as a housemate simply because of the drama she is bringing to the show and the passion she is generating in the audience, and with more confrontational housemates falling by the wayside Helen’s presence as a consistent source of arguments until the final is a good safety net to fall back on. What this week and the argument with Matthew did do for Helen however was get to the source of the reason for a lot of her problems, namely the need for control in a group dynamic, her issues with Matthew stemmed not through Matthew himself but through Matthew not seeing Helen’s interpretation of fun himself. Helen comes across to me like somebody who probably would like the group to get along, but only as long as it is on her levels and to her approval, and the reason why she has associated herself with a group of spineless alpha males who both share Helen’s interpretation of fun and are too scared to speak up against her.

As entertaining as BB15 has been I do have a number of issues with the structure of the series so far. Firstly I have a small issue with the future portrayal of Mark on the show, whilst I do agree that Mark has come across as a lot more likable this week then what I expected this past week has also seen him being used a lot more as the light relief contestant, getting a huge number of individual tasks to distract away from the negative atmosphere that the show has generated, and I get the fear that the over-promotion of Mark in this role is going to lead to him becoming incredibly irritating to watch, something made worse when you also consider the air of contrivance surrounding a lot of his actions. The second issue stems from the Power Housemate twist this year, whilst I am somebody who does like the power twist and support the idea of the twist continuing I do feel that one of the things it has done structurally is lead to a lack of long-term story-arcs within the show, instead containing nearly every major house storyline to a weekly basis, beginning with Pauline’s downfall in week 1, Chris as the anonymous PH in week 2 and Hurricane Toya in week 3, part of this being down in my opinion to the consistent changes in the PH process not allowing for the consistency needed for a good, aggressive storyarc.

Which of course brings us to the Girl Power housemates of this week. Yes it’s terribly unfair and incredibly desperate on behalf of production but it is in my eyes one of the best twists that they could have come up with at this point in the show. Three female housemates have already gone so far this series and thanks to the house dynamics two more of them (Danielle and Ashleigh) were being lined up to follow shortly afterwards, and even for the biggest of Big Brother diehards the idea of Helen being surrounded by eight largely dull male contestants is enough to make you reach for the remote control, so I am all for something which protects the show’s bigger characters and eliminates a poor contestant instead. My one worry with this however once again stems from Helen’s need for control, as I feel that her abrasive and aggressive presence is going to lead to her getting her way and making sure her lackeys remain safe from the wrath of the public, which is why the number of boys safe this week will be a crucial production decision. It should be logical, as three boys guarantees one of Helen’s group misses out, but after what happened with Toya I wouldn’t put my faith in the Channel 5 team.